Uwe Boll Interview: ‘I’m Not The New Ed Wood’, ‘You’re Not A Good Journalist’

At long last, here is Wired News’ interview with Uwe Boll. In case you need to be brought up to speed: I saw the premiere of Boll’s new film Postal. I didn’t like it. Boll responded via email with some interesting suggestions for what my next life goals should be. A brief back-and-forth ensued, and I asked Boll to do a phone interview to tell his side of the story. This morning, we did just that.

Having had a day to think about it, Boll is still of the opinion that I am a bad journalist, but is emphatic that he is not, as his critics have often said, a bad director:

I’m not the new Ed Wood. Ed Wood died poor! And had no success. There’s only that romantic term that Ed Wood was a genius because of the Johnny
Depp movie, not because of Ed Wood. And this is the point, it’s completely absurd, and the whole internet bashing is completely absurd and has nothing to do with my movies. And normally, journalists like you should see that and should write that. You can write, I didn’t like
Bloodrayne, I didn’t like Alone In The Dark, I thought they were stupid, and bad acting, whatever, but if you write that the movies look like amateur trash movies, then you are lying on purpose.

Did I get a word in edgewise during this interview? No. But it’s quite alright, as Boll touched on every topic that I’d hoped he would. The entire, unexpurgated, uncensored transcript of the phone call is below.

Uwe Boll: Hello.

Wired News: Hello, this is Chris Kohler.

UB: Yes, hi, hi. Yeah, now we can do this but whatever we say in the interview, you have to, you cannot censor, right?

WN: Of course not. I have no…

UB: And whatever I say, you have to print it how it is, and correct the spelling.

WN: And correct the spelling? Yeah. Well, there’s no spelling on the phone. So, it’s okay.

UB: Okay, so we can do it, quick, if you want. And look, let me start.

WN: Okay, go right ahead.UB: Your review, like "bad film director Uwe Boll," or whatever, it’s like "bad actor Nicolas Cage," it’s… what I think is unfair and pissing me off in that review was basically that it was written in a way ignoring the crowd in San Francisco who reacted very positive about the movie, and basically ignoring all this, putting your own damaging opinions present in a way, your opinion was written in a way that it was: "hopefully this guy goes out of business, hopefully this movie makes no money, and how can I make this: I’ll write this review the way it is". That it’s a piece of shit movie.

And I think it was a very weak review from your end without any at least trying to see all of the politics and the events of the movie. You ignored the whole Q&A, you ignored the whole political backstory, you ignored basically all. And you don’t accept that it’s maybe the only movie with a concrete political criticizing, maybe the only movie criticizing September 11 politics in a really, really harsh way. Every other political movie, like Syriana, is going away from the main subject matter. Nobody has the balls so far to really blame Bush and Bin Laden, to really say the names, to really make fun of the whole absurd politics. And I think you ignored that all in your review and you wrote another bad review about Uwe Boll because it’s trendy to do this.

So this is my personal opinion from it. And this is what’s pissing me, then, so off that I wrote a very harsh and overreacting email.

WN: I see. I mean, from my perspective, I really enjoyed the first scene, I laughed at the first scene, and then from there I thought that the comedy timing kind of went down, and that was sort of how me and my friends felt about it afterwards. And no, I wasn’t attempting to destroy you or attempting to destroy the movie. But that was my take on the movie, how I felt coming out of it. And I wasn’t going to sit there and go over each individual scene. But as you mentioned, some of the stuff that I felt was kind of a high point… and I think that obviously there were people in the audience who liked it…UB: Read your own review. You trashed that movie as garbage. You trashed me as, like, untalented guy. Read your own review. You went far over the top. I don’t know, if you were choosing a movie like Next with Nicolas Cage or Ultraviolet or Elektra, and you see Postal, and you don’t find anything positive in Postal, then fine. I think you’re not a good film reviewer, you’re not a good journalist, and you are out there in one of the Boll-bashing circles and nothing else is interesting for you.

And posting the whole email correspondence directly on your website, this was your decision, so I don’t care, but this shows that you want to get clicks on your website and everything else doesn’t matter for you. The same with the interview now, it’s only to get more clicks on your website, nothing else. It’s not because you thought about it and you think now that you were wrong. You think I’m an idiot, and this is what you basically get out there. But you should not ignore that from the 250 people sitting there, maybe 220 really liked the movie.WN: I, you know…

UB: And if you read Variety today, in Variety there’s a good review today, and maybe you think the Variety guy is an idiot because he has not your opinions. Or mention the San Francisco Chronicle and tons of other people. And I think it was a totally over-the-top unreasonable damaging bad article.

WN: I don’t think that you’re an idiot, I don’t think that Variety, whoever wrote that review, is an idiot, I think that everybody is certainly entitled to their own opinion. If it turns out that everybody else in the world loves Postal and that I’m completely wrong, I’ve set myself up for that. I’ve set myself up to be shown as wrong in the eyes of the world.

I guess the real question for you is, you’ve produced a very satirical movie, you’ve taken something that people would consider is taboo, September 11, and used it as satirical. Which I think is great, I mean, I think it’s really important to show that there should be no boundaries, that you should be able to go as far as you want. At the same time, you want people to accept that this is what you’re doing with this movie, that you’re going to take taboo subjects and satirize them, but when I sort of take a subject like your movie and end up making a satirical or a funny article about that, I don’t have the right to do that? Only you have the right…

UB: No, you have the right to do that, absolutely, but your article was not funny. Your article was only an ongoing insult against the untalented, bad director. Look, to write as a description for a human being, for a director, "bad director Uwe Boll": did you see German Fried Movie, Murder in Geneve, Run Amok, Heart of America, Blackwoods, or Sanctuary? No. You are like the same, like the Boll bashers, you ignore, you wouldn’t ignore the early works from David Cronenberg, no, of course not! But you ignore, like all the other guys going off on me on the Internet, my first seven movies! You think everything started with House of the Dead. And I think this is sloppy, and not okay.WN: Are these…

UB: You should admire that nobody else did what I did in the last ten years. Nobody else on the whole planet, not one filmmaker out of Germany was able to raise money. All the German money went to the Hollywood studios, I was the only guy doing it. I did one movie after the other, not anybody else. I do my own distribution, my own project development, my own financing and everything. Nobody else did that. But in the opinion of the Boll bashers, I’m a talentless idiot. And you see it exactly the same. You don’t see a big difference between me and an amateur trash guy who shoots with his HD camera for five bucks a movie! This is what your article shows, and this is exactly the same as what the Boll bashers are writing, and this is wrong. This is totally all completely wrong.

WN: I absolutely…

UB: And this is the thing, I am one of the only independent filmmakers who is doing studio movies independently with huge stars, with big budgets, in technical perfect quality. Perfect quality! And this is the point, Postal is not a cheap movie, everything in Postal, everything in Blackwood, everything in In The Name of the King is Hollywood A-list standard. I have the same crew of I, Robot. The same. Not similar crew, the same crew! Special effects and everything: in Fantastic Four and X-Men, I have the same people working on my movies.

But there is an internet wave, and you support this, which turns the truth into bullshit. And this is totally wrong. I’m not the new Ed Wood. Ed Wood died poor! And had no success. There’s only that romantic term that Ed Wood was a genius because of the Johnny Depp movie, not because of Ed Wood. And this is the point, it’s completely absurd, and the whole internet bashing is completely absurd and has nothing to do with my movies. And normally, journalists like you should see that and should write that. You can write, I didn’t like Bloodrayne, I didn’t like Alone In The Dark, I thought they were stupid, and bad acting, whatever, but if you write that the movies look like amateur trash movies, then you are lying on purpose. WN: I never…

UB: This is the reality. And so I think that you should take what I say really serious and that you should change. It’s not me. You should change your point of view about me because it is wrong.

WN: I…UB: This is the thing, I think Postal had a very good script, works very good, and that if you see the movie twice you will see that there is not one story mistake, nothing. Everything fits perfectly together. And we have great acting and great production values, and it’s funny as hell. And that’s the reality. And that if you see it different, you can see it different, you should not write in a damaging way, like with a pre-stamp on the article, like, "whatever he’s doing is bad." And I think this is unfair. I think you should give every movie a new chance before you review it. WN: Which is, and I know you don’t believe me, exactly what I did. I went in with fresh eyes, I laughed at the first scene, I thought the first scene was excellent, and I felt that it was only after that that things…UB: If you don’t see the social impact of the welfare office scene, the genius satire, if you don’t see the job interview, the parody about all of the US government and policies in the companies, if you don’t see all this, the scenes with Bin Laden and Bush, the whole ending of the movie, if you don’t see all of this, I cannot help you. If you think only the beginning was funny, then I hope only that a lot of the audience sees it different.

WN: Um…UB: But I have to move on. I have too many people standing in front of the theater, I have to go in. Email me what you write up, before you post it. I want to see that.WN: I’m going to type this up quickly right now…UB: Okay, thank you. Alright, bye.WN: Okay, thank you.

[Note: Wired does not send stories to sources before they are published. – CK]